Esquire-esque

[fender3x]

...On that train of thought - a 12" radius is where the circle would have a 12 inch radius - so any cylinder with a 24 inch diameter would make a good "reverse radius" to slap some sandpaper on..... like a large pot plant holder?????

Any cylinder with a 24" diameter would do it. Double sticky tape a piece of sandpaper on it and sand away. The plant should not even be bothered with it.

If you don't have a planter the right size but you do have a router, you can also use a circle jig to cut a 12" radius on a piece of scrap wood.

If you don't have a router...is this the sort of thing that men's sheds have? If I ever get to Australia, that will definitely be something I will visit. They exist in the US, but are not common. The nearest one to me is an hour and a half's drive...and is the only one in Florida.

[EsquireEsque]

Yes - I thought about routing a circle (or quarter circle) ... but it'd be a thick slab to be useful..... and a big one to make a circle

Men's sheds - yes I think there are about 3 or 4 within 5 to 10 minutes drive (probably more). Few are actually called "men's sheds" and will simply be "woodworking shops".... there are a number of women who will also turn up to make something.

(There is the one "celebrated" time when an old lady turned up... the guy running the shop was concerned for her safety.. and asked if she'd ever worked with wood before..... she replied "yes, I made a violin once"...from scratch!...)

We have the normal Machinery.... bandsaws, table saws, drop saws, sanding machines, thickenessers, jointers as well as a lot of both power and hand tools etc....."keeps us off the streets" - and for some of us, away from our wives!

I've thought of another use for your "reverse radius" technique.... Neck sockets.
slap some sandpaper on the heel of a neck and use that to sand a way at a very soft wood to make a jig for the neck socket.

Ear-marked for the next body that I'm making.....

[fender3x]

In fairness, I have *used* the radiusing technique but I did not invent it ;-)

One thing to note... If all you are doing is making a radiused caul with a router, the piece of wood doesn't need to be all that big. 1/2" thick, 4" long, 2.5" wide should be plenty. The piece needs to be 12 inches from the center, but technically it only needs to be a bit thicker than the width of a fret, only a little wider than the fretboard. The piece of wood needs to be 12" away from the the anchor for the router trammel, but the piece itself doesn't need to be very long.

I bought my radius block because it cost less than $20 and would have taken me a while to make the jig to put a radius on a long block. T

If you are making blocks for a lot of different radii, maybe it would justify purchasing or making a jig.


Australia is truly the leader in crafting sheds. I am at a conference on aging at the moment, and am becoming increasingly interested in the health benefits.

[EsquireEsque]

I'm actually more interested in the technique for making the neck socket.

it's easy to get the sides of the socket right - not so easy to get the end (particularly if the neck's heel is rounded as in a strat neck - and uneven).

[EsquireEsque]

A question - pardon my ignorance....

If I was to put a output jack on the front of a guitar, but from the back rather than on a control plate, what kind of jack would I need?

The jack that came with the Tele kit from pitbull does not look as though the thread is long enough....

[WeirdBits]

For a ‘top’ wood mount in a semi or solid body a Switchcraft long thread jack is the type normally used. Care is needed when drilling from the back to go just deep enough so you can get enough thread through but not make the wood too thin and weak.

Are you just thinking of mounting the jack that way and still using a control plate, or getting long thread pots too and mounting them all from the back without a plate?

A Strat style plate would also give you a top mount option, using a standard thread jack, or you could do an angled recessed barrel jack… but that’s adds other complexities and probably tears 😭

[Trevor Davies]

A question - pardon my ignorance....

If I was to put a output jack on the front of a guitar, but from the back rather than on a control plate, what kind of jack would I need?

The jack that came with the Tele kit from pitbull does not look as though the thread is long enough....

The old AG style kit had a top jack plug which came from the back control cavity. The top thickness was around 5 mm to allow enough room for the washer and nut. The thread for those jack sockets was about 10 mm long. What is the thread length of your jack socket?

[EsquireEsque]

For a ‘top’ wood mount in a semi or solid body a Switchcraft long thread jack is the type normally used. Care is needed when drilling from the back to go just deep enough so you can get enough thread through but not make the wood too thin and weak.

Are you just thinking of mounting the jack that way and still using a control plate, or getting long thread pots too and mounting them all from the back without a plate?

A Strat style plate would also give you a top mount option, using a standard thread jack, or you could do an angled recessed barrel jack… but that’s adds other complexities and probably tears 😭

I'm thinking of it a san option for a second try.

This time without a control plate - So i"d need longer threaded pots as well.
I ended up making a control plate - and I'm quite happy with it - but the cost of electroplating it with chrome is more than the rest of the guitar so far......

I think a start style plate is good for strats - I can't help but feel it's be out of place on anything else.

Angled recessed barrel jack" - simply sounds a lot of work (anything like what the Ibinez "S" series use?)

thanks for the link.

[EsquireEsque]

The old AG style kit had a top jack plug which came from the back control cavity. The top thickness was around 5 mm to allow enough room for the washer and nut. The thread for those jack sockets was about 10 mm long. What is the thread length of your jack socket?

Hi, It's more like 5 to 7 mm I've worked out that it could fit if the wood was about 3 mm thick - which I'd not think anywhere enough.
I think it'd have to be 5 mm at least?

I was unaware this type of jack came with a longer thread - I thought a barrel style would be needed - and I've read posts where they were found to be problematical.